Rachel Feinstein and John Currin, Their Own Best Creations
Lee Clower for The New York Times
Rachel Feinstein and John Currin defy others’ expectations of how artists should look and live. More Photos »
By DAVID COLMAN
Sprucely dressed waiters tangoed through the crowded space offering Champagne to the artists Brice and Helen Marden; the New Museum director Lisa Phillips; Cynthia Rowley and her husband, the art dealer Bill Powers; Amanda Brooks, the new fashion director of Barneys, and her husband, the artist Christopher Brooks; the painter Francesco Clemente and his wife Alba; Salman Rushdie; and the director Sofia Coppola. Off in a corner, Marc Jacobs and his ex-boyfriend Lorenzo Martone (the latter dressed in knee-high wooly boots) appraised a room of mirrors hand-painted with ghostly landscapes.
But one person in particular stood out on this evening: a tall ginger-haired beauty dressed in a figure-flattering ivory velvet Marc Jacobs dress, chatting with Ms. Coppola, hugging Mr. Martone, keeping an eye on three frisky young children who hovered nearby, and occasionally joking with a blue-suited bespectacled man who cast an amused eye over the gathering.
Even if you hadn’t known it was Rachel Feinstein, the sculptor who had created this fantastical art installation, you probably would have figured out rather quickly — from the way people gravitated toward her and the way she glided confidently around the room — that she was the star of the evening. And the dark-suited man at her side, the one chatting with James Frey? That was John Currin, the husband of Ms. Feinstein and the father of their three children — and arguably the most provocative and successful painter of his generation.